that troubled period which was destined to be one of the closing scenes of its life, when the throne of Thebes was ascended by the last great native queen who appears in Egyptian history,

ANKHNES-NEFER-AB-RA.

From first to last, the long line of the royal heiresses of Egypt extends over a period of nearly 4,000 years; it begins, more than 6,000 years ago, with Neith-hetep, and practically ends with the last Queen of Thebes, about 525 B.C.

Ankhnes-nefer-ab-ra was the daughter of the "Lord of "the plains [Psamtek II.] born of the Great Royal Wife, "chief one of his Majesty Takhuat," and the adopted heiress of her great-aunt Nitaqert. She had probably entered the priestess service of Amen when very young, and was about thirty-four when the death of the aged Nitaqert made her queen of Thebes, with the double cartouches Mut-mery-heq-nefertu Ankhnes-nefer-ab-ra.'

Her accession to the throne of the Thebaïd occurred on the 16th of Mesore [July] in the 4th year of the reign of her elder brother, Haa-ab-ra3 (in 586). A second brother was called Psamtek, and the same monument names her three sisters, Neitmartefs, Astkhebt, and . . . sentinery.5 The queen did not become the wife of her brother Haa-ab-ra, although she was in authority at Thebes through some fifteen years of his reign.

Upon his murder, and the accession of Aahmes II. as king of Egypt, the high priestess was probably forced to submit to the usual custom, and legitimize the usurper's position by sharing with him her crown. This seems not

to have been done by marriage, but by an official connection,

1 P., H.E., iii, 339; A.S., V, 88.

? A.S., V, 86, 90.

3 Ibid., 87.

A Naos in the Cairo M.; Rec., xvi, 46.

5 Ibid., P.; H.E., iii, 341.

which was authority enough at a time when the claims of natural rights could always be superseded at will. It is certain that the queen is nowhere called the wife of either king under whom she reigned, and that no records have been found of any other husband, or of children, in connection with her. She appears, at least officially, a solitary figure, as the last "Divine Worshipper" at the shrine of Amen.

The most important memorial of her reign is the alabaster stela found by Legrain at Karnak in 1904.1 It recounts the adoption by Nitaqert of Ankhnes-nefer-ab-ra ; establishes her descent and connection, and proves the dates of her father's death, and of her own adoption and enthronement. The queen's works at Karnak consist of two small chapels, in which she is represented accompanied by her vizier, Prince Sheshenq, whose name suggests descent from the royal line of the XXIIth dynasty.

Other memorials of this reign are a green basalt statuette with the queen's name and titles; a stone slab;" a scarab; the records of some officials, and the sarcophagus in which she was buried at Thebes. At some subsequent period it had been usurped, and the inscriptions on it do not all refer to the queen. Her tomb is at Deir el-Medineh, and from it the sarcophagus was taken in 1833. It is now in the British Museum.'

6

After Ankhnes-nefer-ab-ra, no other hereditary princess of Thebes is found. "The female line of the Ramessides, " maintained with such care during six centuries by the high priests, by the Bubastites, by the Ethiopians, by the Saïtes, expired with her."8

1 Cairo M., Room U, 675 a; A.S., V, 2 L., D., iii, 273 e-h, 274 a, c.

3 Cairo M.

5 F.P. Coll.

84-90.

• Berl. M., 2112.

• P., H.E., iii, 356.

7 Rec., xxvi, 50; S. SHARPE, Eg. Antiq. in B.M., 104–185.

8 M.'s M.R., 759.

One looks in vain for any further details of the queen; she had administered the Theban state during the decaying age of Egypt's greatness; had held her office through war and invasion; had submitted to official marriage with the foe of her house; and during the reign of his successor, Psamtek III., she still appears in power, and probably died about 525. It is scarcely likely that she lived to be dethroned by Cambyses' conquest, as by that time she would have been ninety-five years of age. It may, therefore, be assumed that she died in full possession of the power and titles which no daughter of hers, either real or adopted, was destined ever to inherit.

So vanishes the last Queen of Thebes, the last royal heiress of the Pharaohs; and with her closes the most extraordinary history of the legal status of a country's womankind that the world has ever known.1

The Greek queens of the Ptolemaic period, and those queens who held royal titles in Ethiopia at a time when that line no longer ruled in Egypt, do not come within the scope of this volume, which deals only with the native princesses.

UNPLACED QUEENS.

The names of a few queens who have not been surely placed, remain to be noticed.

AAT-SHET is an unknown "Great Royal Wife," whose sole record is a scarab inscribed with her name and title; it is in the collection of Mr. T. M. Davis, and is published by Mr. Percy E. Newberry. (S.B.A., 1903.) ·

NEBT-NEHAT is another new queen whom Mr. Newberry puts on record. She is named as "Hereditary Princess," and "Great Royal Wife," on the fragments of an alabaster jar now in Lord Amherst's collection. (S.B.A., 1903.)

MERY-NEB-ES is a queen recorded on a fragment of black basalt in Cairo. The style of cutting suggests the XXVIth dynasty as her date; otherwise unknown. (P.E.N. in S.B.A., 1905).

KHADEB-NEIT-AR-BET, another unknown queen, whose tomb is at Sakkara. The lid of her sarcophagus and four canopic jars have been found, but contain no inscription by which she can be identified. On the slight evidence of a broken ushabti of King Nekht-hor-heb, which was found in her tomb, she has been attributed to his reign, in the XXXth dynasty. (B., R., i, 8; M.D., 95, cf.)